Be Still!!

 

Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God.

“Stop your fighting—and know that I am God.

Be still, and know that I am God:

Be still, be calm, see, and understand I am the True God.

Give ye attention, and see ye, that I am God

My mother and father told me to “be still” a million times in my life, usually in church. So I’ve heard it forever, why am I still fighting so hard?

I’m having a hard time being still. I keep trying to help. He doesn’t need my help – I need His.

Lord, please help me to be still and let you be in charge. 

A dead snake can’t hurt you. . . or can it??

Here is my dumb deed for the day.  Of course, I have to give you the background story, can’t just jump right in. We have a detached garage that is in questionable shape. We’ve had baby kittens, big old tomcats, probably all kinds of stuff in our garage. That is where our washer is, so we have to go to the garage to do laundry.  My sister and I have both seen a  snake in our garage.  She saw it first and I told her it probably wasn’t really a snake, and then I saw it too!! I had to apologize. 

So today I discovered a dead snake on our driveway. It’s a little snake and it’s dead.   I have no idea what kind of snake it is and I don’t really care, I’m just glad it is DEAD. I walked past it once and didn’t see it, then on the way OUT of the garage, I saw it. I poked it with my shoe and realized it was dead.  So of course I had to take a picture of it.

Of course, I took the picture so it looks much bigger than it really is. It’s only about 2 inches across.  I haven’t moved it because I had to show it to Josh and Robyn when she gets home. 

So here comes the dumb part. I hurt my shoulder back in September, playing Tug of War at AWANA.  It’s gotten much better, but every now and then it twinges, mostly when I stretch a certain way. (Putting stuff in the back seat of the car while I’m driving hurts TERRIBLY. You know, like the slapping the kid in the back seat move.)   Today I’m carrying the laundry basket of of clean clothes back into the house. . . meaning I’ve already walked past the dead snake multiple times.   I look down, see it, KNOWING IT’S THERE and it scared me to death. I jumped, twisted and  almost dropped the laundry basket.  And of course it was the hurt shoulder.  It twinged, hurt and now I’m putting the cold pack on it again. I mean honestly, I’ve seen it like 10 times today. Really?? My daddy has said before that a lot of things wont’ hurt us, but they will surely cause us to hurt ourselves. He’s exactly right!!

Things I wish I could say to parents

I read a really funny email one time about comments that teachers WISH we could put on report cards.   It’s hysterical – you can read a similar post here: http://tinyurl.com/lfsh5se

Today I finished my 19th year teaching. I hope and pray daily that I can make it to retirement, but sometimes I wonder.   I send home a letter at the beginning of the year to parents, and I have a mental letter that I wish I could send home.  Here it is:

 

Dear Parents,

Today your child starts 6th grade and entered my class for the first time. I’m very excited and hope you are too. This will be a  big year full of changes for your child, so brace yourself. Here are some things you need to know about my class, about me and about middle schoolers in general.

1. Your child behaves differently when you’re not around – and your child WILL do things when they are with their friends that YOU don’t think they will do.

 

2.  Your child will most likely fib to avoid trouble.  It’s the nature of the beast. . .

3. Why would I lie about or want to hurt your child?  Why do you think I do this job –f or the fabulous  pay, the amazing support and because it’s such a respected position?  Oh yes, you think I do it for the three months of summer??

4.  Your child may be one of the few who comes home and does their homework every day with no complaints, and turns it in, with their name on it all the time.  But they may not be either – which means it either

A) may not be complete.

B) may not have been turned in

or

C) may not have had their name on it.

 

5. It is YOUR job, not mine to make sure that your student has supplies at school.

6. You are not doing your child a favor when  you speak badly about his or her teachers  and they hear you.  Or dropping whatever you are doing to bring your child’s __________________  to school.

(insert your own item in the blank – PE clothes, homework, binder, etc.)  They can live without it today and it may help them be more responsible tomorrow.

7.  There is a line between advocating for  your child and making excuses for your child.

8.  Please, please do not be your child’s friend.  Most of your child’s issues w ill come from their friends, and they have enough of those. Be your child’s PARENT.

9. In our county, we have a tool called the Parent Viewer. Sign up and use it. It’s free – you can see your kid’s grade at any time. Please don’t be surprised when your sweet baby has not turned in 3 of 6 homework assignments and then has a bad grade. BUT, please do not fuss when your angel still has a 95 for the quarter, but did badly on one assignment and got a 50%.  Everybody has bad days sometimes.  Look at the whole grade, not EVERY, SINGLE assignment. 

10.  My classroom is not a dance club, it’s not a beauty parlor or hair salon and it’s not the Dating Game.  I don’t want to see hair brushing or picking, any of my students “shaking what their momma gave them” or hugging, kissing or hanging onto anybody else.

11.  If your child gets their way at home by asking you the same thing over and over and over again, that doesn’t work for me.  It just makes me more determined NOT to give them their way.

12. There are certain parts of your kids body I should not EVER see.  I don’t want to see armpits, bosoms, belly buttons  or butt cracks.

13.  There are certain words that are NEVER appropriate in my classroom. I will never say them to your child and your child needs to NEVER say them to me either.  I don’t care if it’s OK with you at your house, and if you don’t care if you child says the F-word, but it is NOT OKAY to EVER say that word in my classroom.

14. I want your child to be nice. Nice to me, nice to other students, nice to my classroom. Just be nice.

Teacher Appreciation Week

I made a comment earlier that needs some explanation. I said “Just for the record worst teacher appreciation week ever!!!!!!” “Sandi, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do.”

Most of the time I feel like being a teacher is an honorable profession and that what I do is important enough to get up for every day.  May is a hard month for teachers – we’re done with our FCAT so the kids think we’re done, we’re all tired and everything seems to be too much right now.

So this week in May usually gives me a bit of a boost, a reminder that what I do every day is GOOD.  I get those warm, fuzzy feelings and it gives me the energy to keep on for the rest of the year.

Not so much this year. We’ve gotten our little gifts from our administration, we had a luncheon today, which was lovely, but I’m just not FEELING it.

I have one class this year that is challenging to say the least. The days I wake up with this class, I often wake up with a headache.  It’s just stress, but I can’t seem to get over it.  It’s not my biggest class, and it’s not horrible kids. It’s just a strange combination of kids. It didn’t start out this way, but I realized that out of the 21 students in the class, only 6 were in my class the first day of school. It’s utterly exhausting and it just sucks the energy right out of me. This class makes me feel completely incompetent and like the worst teacher ever.  Nothing works and it frustrates me that I can’t get through to them.

I also had a situation this week where I felt like I was kind of left hanging out on a limb.  All I could think was that 10 minutes of support would have gone a lot more to make me feel appreciated than the candy in my mailbox.  (Not that I don’t love candy, but still.)

I just keep thinking it will all be over soon. I only have that class 8 more times. I can make it. Right?? 

Strange Dreams

Do you ever wonder what your dreams mean? I know some people think they don’t dream, but we all do. I have very vivid, sometimes terrifying dreams. I’ve woken myself up, with my heart beating fast because I was so scared from a dream. I’ve awakened with wet eyes, crying from things I’ve dreamed.  I’ve had dreams that continued even after I woke up and then went back to sleep. 

For years, I had a recurring dream that scared me so badly, I would wake myself up. I knew somehow it was a dream, and would have this conversation with myself and force me to wake me up.  When I was in high school, instead of waking myself up, I had this mental talk – just go a little further. You can always wake myelf up later.  It was a  haunted house dream, there was  a terrifying noise inside. I make myself stay asleep and dreamed the whole dream through – the scary noise was a puppy, trapped inside the house. Once I dreamed it all the way through, I never dreamed it again.

Last night I had a strange, strange dream.  I was trying to protect my little friend Trevor from vampires.  I’m not sure why vampires, I’m not sure why Trevor.  We ended up down the dirt road my sister lived on when my nephew was born. . . with my sisters ex brother and sister in law.  We discovered that the brother was being poisened by the wife.  I have no idea where the vampires came in, but I was hiding Trevor.  While I’m trying madly to  not let Trevor get bitten by the vampires, I’m talking on the phone to his Auntie K. who lives in Phoenix.  I was talking to her while she was at work – and she’s a nurse. Two or three times, she said “Hold on” while she worked on patients.  We were on the phone for like two and half hours, while I’m pretending all is well. I’m trying desperately for Trevor (or Auntie K)  not to know we’re running from vampires.  Then, there were Legos.

I know – it’s very strange. The only explanation I can come up with is that I showed my students a video telling of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, in which the story was told with Legos. It was pretty cool!  I know my friend Trevor LOVES Legos so maybe that’s where he came in. I have no earthly idea what brought on the vampires or my sister’s ex- in-laws.  I don’t even know why Trevor’s aunt was in the mix. I’m just glad I saved Trevor from the vampires.

 

Isn’t he adorable?? I mean, is it any wonder the vampires wanted him??

Oh, oh, I just figured out why perhaps my mind inserted Trevor’s aunt into my dream. My friend Jennifer, who is Trevor’s mom, posted pictures of her and Madison, Trevor’s big sister, in aprons that Auntie K made. I was admiring the aprons yesterday!!!

Priceless

Two weeks ago (on March 2) I taught a lesson that I borrowed from a book called “And the Bride Wore White.” One of the illustrations I used involved a Styrofoam cup, a mug and a china cup. Of course, I had to change it up a bit, so I used a Sonic cup, my Tervis  cup, and a cup and saucer I got from my Granny. My cup and saucer used to sit on her corner shelf in  her old house and I remember looking up at it when I was a little girl.  My mom made me stand with my hands behind my back – I could look but not touch! When my Granny got ready to downsize and move next door to my Aunt Cecelia, she told us we could have some of her stuff. I grabbed that little cup and saucer.  I’m sure it’s not worth a lot – it’s not priceless china (I don’t guess) but yesterday it became priceless.

My Granny is my Mom’s mother old. She lived alone, next to my aunt, until a few years ago.  She worked her whole life – and it wasn’t easy I don’t think. I’ve blogged about her twice:

 http://jim-merson.blogspot.com/2010/10/grannys-birthday.html

and

http://jim-merson.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-granny.html

 

During the lesson, I told the girls that the cup and saucer would become even more valuable to me, once my Granny was gone. I had no idea how prophetic that would be.  Yesterday I got three phone calls while I was at school. I usually keep my phone on silent, but because I was waiting on some news from my Daddy, I had it on. One phone call was my Daddy, telling me about a procedure he has to have done this week.  A few minutes later, it rang again, but I didn’t know the number and I didn’t answer it. A few minutes later, it rang again and it was my sister. My sister NEVER calls me at work, so I knew it was important. She told me, through her tears, that my Granny was gone. She fussed at my aunt in the morning, told her she wasn’t something right, ate her breakfast and went back to bed. My aunt’s friend Maggie, who’s been wonderful about helping Aunt Ceke take care of Granny, went to check on Granny when she was getting ready to go, and Granny was gone.

My Aunt Ceke  said she didn’t want my Granny to have to go to a nursing home – and she didn’t. Aunt Ceke said she would take care of Granny as long as she could – and she did. Aunt Ceke  has basically put her life on hold to take care of my Granny – and she did a great job. It wasn’t easy, Granny could be cantankerous. But now they can both rest.

I looked at my cup and saucer today—it sits on a shelf in my kitchen.  It’s amazing how two weeks can change something so much.  My cup and saucer went from valuable to priceless. It’s worth a WHOLE lot more today than it was last week.

Another One Bites the Dust

Back in September, I posted about my bad luck with pointy fingers. You can read that HERE:   http://jim-merson.blogspot.com/2012/09/bad-luck-with-pointy-fingers.html

I have this pointy finger thing I use with my document camera.  Last Friday I was out of school because I had this Girls Retreat. . . I had a great sub, left lots of work, my room was reasonably clean.

Before I left on Thursday, I saw my pointy finger (with a Cracker Jack prize pencil topper on it!) on my cart with my document camera. I started to put it away, but thought no, it will be OK. 

Today, I get back to school, read my note and breath a sigh of relief, mostly. Three of my four classes were good, one was terrible, but I sort of expected that. I’m going on with my classes today, having a pretty good day.  Imagine my surprise when I walk past my cart and see. . .

the Cracker Jack pencil topper lying on the cart and the pointy finger – NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!! I think of my students stole it, but first, took the topper off and left it on the cart. I was (and still am)  furious!!  Who does that??  I guess I need a yellow once, since I’ve had every other color and they have all disappeared!! I can’t believe it.